KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Joining me now is the Minister for Industry, Tim Ayres. Minister, thanks for your time. I want to start by playing for you and our viewers the comments and the speech, part of it, by the Prime Minister last night at the Sydney Opera House.

[Excerpt]

PRIME MINISTER ANTHONY ALBANESE: Tragically, we are gathered here tonight because on the 14th of December, everything changed, and for that I am sorry. We cherish the promise [Applause]. We cherish the promise of Australia that this country is a safe harbour. But sadly, that promise was broken. You came to celebrate a festival of light and freedom, and you were met with the violence of hatred. I am deeply and profoundly sorry that we could not protect your loved ones from this evil.

[End excerpt]

HOST: The Prime Minister there at the 'Light Will Win' event marking and honouring the lives lost in that atrocity. He got the tone right. He's been praised by many for that address. Julian Leeser, among others says, "Why did it take so long?" Minister?

SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: Well, it was a profoundly important event for Australia last night, and the Day of Mourning was important. There were opportunities immediately between this atrocity and Christmas where Australians came together. But I think this event, a month after this atrocity, was an important moment for the country. And what you saw then was the Prime Minister giving, I think, an important speech that covered the totality of the significance of this event. And the moment that you pointed to is an important moment.

GILBERT: It is. What do you say to the argument from the Coalition and others that it's taken too long for him to get to that point? You know, the government dragged to a Royal Commission, the PM with that unequivocal apology. He has apologised before, but clearly that was a much more, as you put it, a profound contribution last night.

AYRES: I mean, of course he's indicated very similar sentiments all the way through, but what we've had here is a partisan response from the alternative parties of government. Instead of focusing on the national interest and Australia's interest, they're focused on the partisan interest and getting into a political argument rather than backing the government, backing the national response and putting the country first. And it's just a legacy of the Nationals and the Liberals who haven't learnt the lesson of the Morrison period. If you put the party interest before the country interest, then you end up in this sort of self-absorbed twaddle that we've seen over the last few weeks. You've got to put the country first, and they just haven't been able to do that.

HOST: I think, speaking to leaders in the Jewish community and beyond, certainly those leaders within that community will be feeling a sense of relief that there is that legislative response that the Prime Minister has been so unequivocal in that address last night, you heard the applause yourself at the 'Light Will Win' event. It was sort of quite telling in itself.

Something that Andrew Hastie posted and I think will resonate with a lot of Australians, including those in the Jewish community, though, is the need to – while we have the Royal Commission and everything else, fundamentally, there needs to be the firepower to deal with these evil individuals if they seek to do harm, specifically on the Jewish community. Because in the wake of Bondi, that's what we're focused on, and rightly. There needs to be that physical response. Our security agencies need to be ready. As a cabinet minister, do you feel now that people are on alert that they are where they need to be to prevent this sort of appalling atrocity from happening again on our shores?

AYRES: Yeah, if I can make three points. I mean, the first one's a political one, I suppose, Kieran, and that is, if Andrew Hastie and the Liberals believed in that, they would have voted for it. You know, that's the problem. They made a lot of criticisms of the government's approach, demanded that the Parliament come back, demanded that Jillian Segal's report be implemented in full. The government brought legislation to the Parliament and had to change the shape of that because the Liberals and Nationals couldn't bring themselves to vote for it. I mean, that is not a serious approach from what allegedly is an alternative party of government.

In terms of our preparedness and the various state governments’ preparedness, of course, this event has – while successive governments at the Commonwealth level and at the state level have been preparing for these kinds of events, when one happens, it is of course, an opportunity, a reminder, a shock. That means that all of our responses and our preparedness is being evaluated. That's what the Richardson Report, as part of the overall Royal Commission, that's what Dennis Richardson's work will support.

But of course, in an everyday sense, we've seen the government intensely engaged from the first minutes after this atrocity began. You know, the government engaged in an absolutely whole-of-system way, from the security agency response, right across to the work that we've commissioned David Gonski to do on the government's behalf in the education system. You know, there is no part of government's response that we're not, as a government looking at. We're not doing that in a defensive political way. We're very open, as the Prime Minister's speech last night demonstrated. His character, his leadership, is open, deliberate. We've worked through a process. We're attacking these issues as speedily as possible. Where there's deficiencies, we'll deal with them.

HOST: Yeah, indeed. And David Ossip from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry is with me in half an hour. And again, just to reiterate our support for that community. And 'Light Will Win', it was a very moving evening to observe, and we hope that they feel that solidarity once again today.

Tim Ayres, and finally, you've announced this 'Made in Australia' initiative today. It's a shift in tone now, but I do want to ask you about it because I remember as a kid growing up and seeing that label a lot. Is this what you're trying to reinvigorate that, what is it here? Is it protectionism, a sense of patriotism? What exactly are you tapping into with that?

AYRES: Well, 1986, Australian Made launched by the Hawke Government. Last year, in part of our overall response to the tariffs announced by the US administration in April of last year, the Prime Minister announced a package of reforms. One of them was to put $20 million into a high-quality advertising campaign run by Australian Made. That starts today. It's a reminder for Australian households of the value of buying Australian – the pride that Australian manufacturing workers, blue-collar workers in factories in suburbs and industrial regions all over Australia, feel in the work that they do. A reminder to households: if we can increase the amount that households spend on Australian goods and services by an average of $10, that is an additional $5 billion worth of economic activity – an additional 10,000 good blue-collar jobs. And very deliberately, this campaign launched as we approach Australia Day. A reminder to Australian households: whether you're in the supermarket shelves looking at tins of tomatoes, buy the Australian tomatoes. If you're doing a house renovation, buy Australian doors and window frames. It's a reminder to buy Australian on Australia Day. Buy Australian every day of the year. Let's build our economic resilience. Let's build our communities and build our economy. This campaign's an important reminder – a high-quality advertising campaign that I'm sure Australians will support.

HOST: Okay. Well, we will wait to see those ads on Sky News and elsewhere. Innovation Minister Tim Ayres, thank you.

AYRES: I’m sure they’ll be here on Sky, I’m sure.

HOST: I'm sure they will be my friend.

AYRES: Thanks.

HOST: And we'll talk to you soon. Stay with us.

ENDS.